Author: Steven Sahiounie

Israel’s foreign intelligence agency boss is expected in Qatar soon to spearhead talks on a potential truce and captive-prisoner exchange with Hamas, a news report says. David Barnea was involved in previous significant pushes for a truce deal. A short-lived ceasefire in November was agreed and came into effect after his participation in talks in Doha. Barnea, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, and Egyptian officials will focus on remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas, including over prisoner releases and humanitarian aid, the Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed source as saying. Hamas this week presented a new ceasefire…

The efforts of unfriendly countries will not interfere with the Russian presidential election in the country and abroad, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said. “Let me point out that the enemies’ efforts cannot disrupt the elections of the President of Russia, which are successfully and actively conducted throughout the country as well as abroad. On March 17, Russian diplomats in Washington, D.C., New York and Houston will not only exercise their constitutional right, but will also ensure by all possible means that Russian citizens can go to the polls in a calm and safe environment and make their fateful…

The Biden administration is weighing how to respond if Israel defies warnings against launching a military invasion of Rafah without a credible plan to protect Palestinian civilians, the US network NBC News has reported. According to one former and three current US officials, there is growing concern that Biden’s pleas will be ignored. Netanyahu announced earlier this week that he had approved plans for an incursion into the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, where more than one million people are sheltering. Failing to comply with the US request for Israel to present a plan for the evacuation of civilians in Rafah…

In a statement, Palestinian resistance factions called the forming of a government without national consensus a “reinforcement of policy of exclusion.” Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups warned on Friday that President Mahmoud Abbas’ selection of a new Palestinian prime minister this week might exacerbate differences while the war in Gaza continues. In a statement, the factions which include Islamic Jihad Movement, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Palestinian National Initiative, noted that “Making individual decisions, and engaging in formal steps that are devoid of substance, like forming a new government without national consensus, is a reinforcement…

Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN has stated that the foreign presence within Ukrainian forces was a fact long before Poland revealed it. Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, coined foreign troops’ presence in Ukraine an ‘open secret’ that was dubbed a fact before the Polish foreign minister revealed the deployment of NATO forces in Kiev. In a statement for Sputnik, Polyansky said “It’s an open secret that Western military personnel are present in Ukraine. We know not only through the Polish foreign minister but other sources.” He also further supported his statement by referencing the leaked conversation between German…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved plans for a military attack on the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, the last major population center to be subjected to a ground invasion in the regime’s genocidal war on the besieged Palestinian territory. Netanyahu’s office announced in a statement on Friday that he “approved plans for a military operation in Rafah, and the army is operationally preparing for it and for the evacuation of residents.” The statement provided no details on the exact time and date of the assault, and rejected the latest ceasefire proposal put forward by the Gaza-based Palestinian resistance…

The High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union, Joseph Borrell, congratulated Mohammed Mustafa on his appointment as the new Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, at this critical moment of great suffering for the Palestinian people. “More than ever, the Palestinian people need well-governed institutions that deliver much-needed services in these trying times. We look forward to continuing our cooperation with the new government, including addressing the tragic situation in Gaza, and working on key reforms towards stronger democratic institutions and governance, for the benefit of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza,”…

By: Steven Sahiounie, Journalist and political commentator The carnage and devastation in Gaza is ongoing, but as the world looks at the western most land in Palestine, there are ongoing battles to the east in the Occupied Territory of the West Bank. Tensions flared all of the summer of 2023 in the West Bank, and once the Israeli attacks began in Gaza, the Palestinians of the West Bank were also targeted by Israel and made to suffer because of the Hamas resistance operation in Israel on October 7, even though they are not connected by land. Israel Defense Forces (IDF)…

Moscow’s Western opponents actively tried over the past year to disrupt the Russian presidential election, Russia’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told TASS on Saturday. “Our opponents stirred up not just a week or a month ago. It seems to me that over the past year they did everything to either disrupt the presidential election or prevent it from being held or distort the conception of the elections in different ways,” the diplomat said. The West has organized misinformation campaigns and influence in the cyber sphere: from spreading the corresponding content to blocking the apps of Russian organizations on digital…

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi deplored the attempts by the Western media outlets to draw the world’s attention away from the crisis in Palestine and Gaza and prevent the Israeli atrocities from being publicized. In a meeting with a group of Iranian media people and officials of news agencies and newspapers, held in Tehran on Thursday, President Raisi decried the role of the Western media outlets in diverting the public opinion of the people of the world away from the events in Palestine and Gaza. “Some media are mercenaries for the United States and the Zionist regime, while censoring the widespread…